LANDSAM research group given 'world class' status

Mural in Bogota depicting the relationship between mining and conflict in Colombia. Photo: John-Andrew McNeish

Noragric's 'Rights, Accountability and Power in Development' (RAPID) research group receives top ranking from the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education.

LANDSAM research group given 'world class' status

In an evaluation of social science research in Norway conducted by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT), LANDSAM's 'Rights, Accountability and Power in Development' (RAPID) research cluster was one of 22 research groups to be given the coveted 5/5.

The top ranking of 5 points is, according to Khrono, reserved for highly productive research environments/groups that produce world-class research and publish in the most reputable international journals.

Whilst RAPID was the only research environment/group from NMBU to recieve top ranking, others also did very well, including Political Ecology, Global Studies and Environmental Governance.

RAPID is involved in the following sub-fields of research and teaching:

Gender Rights

Marginalized and Indigenous Peoples Rights

Labour Rights

Water Rights and Governance

Land Rights and Study of the Impacts of Land Acquisitions

Environmental Politics and Rights to Resources

Socio-environmental Conflict and Strategies for Resolution

Legal Pluralism

The Role of Civil Society in REDD

Security and Development

RAPID is an inter-disciplinary research group with members from a diverse disciplinary background including anthropology, geography, sociology, political science, economy, development and environmental studies [source nmbu.no].